The station started operations on channel 24 on June 10, 1968, under the call sign WHTV. It was originally owned by the Delta Communications Corporation, which was presided over by local businessmen Weyman Walker, and James Britton. WHTV aired programs from CBS and
ABC in a secondary manner. Like many UHF start-ups in a previously
VHF market, this channel could not gain a significant foothold in ratings or local advertising, especially against the established
WTOK-TV, a CBS primary affiliate, and had to go
dark on October 13, 1970. On March 23, 1972,
Frank K. Spain bought WHTV and made it a full-time
satellite of his WTWV (now
WTVA) in
Tupelo, which was affiliated with
NBC. It also rebroadcast some ABC programs carried by WTWV/WTVA such as
college football. Television listings during this time instructed viewers to consult WTWV's listings for WHTV's program schedule. This changed on April 1, 1980, when Spain opted to convert WHTV into a stand-alone station, making it the primary CBS affiliate for Meridian after WTOK changed its affiliation to ABC. WHTV continued to air NBC's
Today Show and
Tonight Show in the early 1980s; however, the rest of the network's programming was not seen for about two years by area residents except those who could receive, whether over the air or by cable, either
Jackson's
WLBT or
Hattiesburg's
WDAM. In 1982, NBC returned to the market on WLBM (now WGBC) as a
semi-satellite of WLBT. Meanwhile, in 1986, WHTV changed call letters to WTZH. The station had to leave the air for a second time because of financial troubles in 1991, leaving eastern Mississippi and portions of western
Alabama without a locally-based CBS affiliate. During the gap, Hattiesburg's
WHLT and occasionally
Selma, Alabama's
WAKA were carried by
Comcast to provide CBS programming to cable subscribers. Others may have received Jackson's
WJTV over the air. Finally, the Spain family returned channel 24 to the air as WMDN on February 2, 1994, in time for the
Winter Olympics in
Lillehammer, Norway. From
that year until
1997, the station aired
National Football League games from
Fox (which had acquired these games from
CBS). In 1995, WMDN entered into a
local marketing agreement (LMA) with WGBC. In January 2008, businessman Wade Threadgill of
Austin, Texas, purchased the station and its LMA with WGBC, ending 36 years of Spain family, and Mississippi-based, ownership. On January 5, 2009, Fox moved its affiliation from WTOK to WGBC as the primary affiliation in full HD. Both Fox and NBC programming were then offered in HD on WGBC. This move provided WMDN and WGBC the full complement of three of the Big Four network affiliates. In 2014, WMDN switched its AccuWeather service on the digital subchannel to entertainment programming
Bounce TV on 24.2, and adding NBC-owned
Cozi TV on 24.3. WMDN's license was planned to be spun off to Lance Media, which would have entered into a
shared services agreement (SSA) with WGBC (which
Standard Media would have acquired outright as part of its purchase of most of the Waypoint Media stations). However, with the collapse of the Waypoint-Standard Media deal in early January 2021, the sale to Lance Media also fell apart. In July 2021, Waypoint announced that it would sell nine of its television stations, including WGBC, to
Cumming, Georgia—based Coastal Television for $36.9 million. WMDN would be sold to Big Horn Television for $2.55 million and operated by Coastal under a LMA. The sale was completed on January 4, 2022. ==News operation==